The Madonna and Child Postal Stamp Project

Hawaii was blessed with having the late Father Gerard J. Leicht for 56 years as a priest in the Honolulu Diocese. He belonged to the order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Sadly, Fr. Leicht passed away a few years ago on January 24th, 2002 and he is still missed very much.

One ministry that Fr. Leicht founded was the Madonna and Child Postal Stamp Project. It was his idea to have Catholics everywhere buying and using as many of the Madonna and Child Christmas stamps from the The United States Post Office, as possible and to use them throughout the year. These stamps are usually only available during the Christmas season

This was Father Leicht's way of evangelizing and reminding everyone that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season".

So, the next time you plan on purchasing your stamps, start buying the Christmas Madonna and Child stamps as long as they are available, and use them on everything that you mail that requires a stamp.

My family started doing this a few years ago and it is now a tradition for us to only use the Christmas stamps throughout the year. The one shown above is this year's stamp.

Note: The following is a little background on the Christmas stamp. The artist as you will read, is Peruvian.

The 2006 Christmas stamp features an oil-on-canvas with gold details entitled Madonna and Child with Bird. Dating to around 1765, the painting is attributed to Ignacio Chacón—an artist active from about 1745 to 1775 in Cuzco, Peru. It is now part of the Engracia and Frank Barrows Freyer Collection of Peruvian colonial art at the Denver Art Museum.

The theme of each "traditional" U.S. Christmas stamp issued since 1978 has been the Madonna and Child, and these holiday stamps have attracted a devoted following over the years. Ignacio Chacón's Madonna and Child with Bird underscores the appreciation of this timeless genre. Imbued with the sacred symbols of two cultures, the painting is a striking reminder of the diversity inherent in the spread of Christianity to the New World.

In designing the stamp, art director Michael
Osborne slightly cropped the painting's floral "frame" and surrounded the entire
composition with a gold border that echoes Chacón's use of gold-leaf
embellishments.